Richard Wesley

Wow, bit of an epic trip to the hospital with a bunch of orphans today. It appeared quite a nice catholic setup with clean-ish buildings and a fairly well run out patient department at least. The doctor was much as could be expected though, fairly grumpy, bossy and unfriendly, but at least apparently very busy. The real issue was eight year old Stephan's reaction to having some blood taken for a CD4 test (counting white cells). I expected the little guy to be a pro at it, even if nervous. He took my hand on the way to the lab and I chatted away about this and that. Once inside though things turned bad with wailing and crying and squirming. But that's not so bad. I got Immaculate who was also up for some blood to go first and chatted about it some more with Stephen, and started to think I had cracked it. Then it was back into the hot seat and melt down again. However this time the lab technician said and did things I can't repeat here, I'm still in shock I think. In the ...

The full update, for those interested, is that I am now project supervisor for an orphan sponsorship project based in a little town of Belo, in the middle of the north west region of Cameroon. The project is under an local outfit called Berudep, but is run sort of independently, with the main aim of the game being 100% of sponsors funds reaching their target orphan. A little website I set up gives you the general outline and also a look at the orphans involved and their wonderful names.... Immaculate, Precious, Elvis, Godwill.... check it out for yourself: sponsor-an-orphan.blogspot.com So far my job has involved sorting out the numbers, that is the rather involved and complicated accounting system here, but also getting out and seeing how things are in the homes of some of these kids. There is a wide variety, from Stephen (see the previous post on jiggers), to Joy the little baby, to Immaculate who is twenty and learning to sew. The traditional set up here is very rural, basically sub...

The end of my first week and so much is running around inside my head. Much of the time when arriving somewhere is sorting out who is who, what the most important parts of the project are, and what the next most urgent steps are. Looks like some improvements to the accounting system, and some teaching lessons for me might be order. More on the project another day, as I want to share all about ‘jiggers’. These were a bit of a shock to me, but are in fact ‘sand fleas’ which live in dry dusty sandy areas in tropical areas. According to the internet “tungiasis” is an infestation of the skin by the sand flea. The pregnant female flea burrows under the skin, sucks blood, swells, and releases hundreds of eggs. Apparently “…complications, though rare, may involve ulceration, gangrene, secondary infection, tetanus, and death…”. Well, totally destroyed feet are certainly another complication of at least one of the orphans here! He’s had so many jiggers in his feet, especially around his t...

I’m now writing from the village of Belo, which sits in amongst the rolling green highlands of inland Cameroon, by the light of a flickering candle, using the last of my laptop battery before it, like me, falls asleep. There is a small project here working with orphans that I will be helping will for the coming little while. I’m taking over from an English guy, Niall, who has been here seven months and was very happy to get my email saying that I would be happy to try and help out as he leaves in a week. Today, as an introduction for me, we visited a local school for ‘graduation’ day, with two of the projects sponsored orphans dressed to the nines. It was a great way to get a feel for some of the issues presented with lack of resources and difficult conditions for children with little support, but also a celebration of life with singing and drumming from the school kids.

After four weeks of various attempts, I tried a final time at the immigration office for an extension or conversion of my Cameroon visa but to no avail. It was time to put plan B into action so I grabbed my book and toothbrush and with plenty of time to spare (well, seven hours) before my visa expired, managed to get across the bridge separating Cameroon and Gabon hanging onto the back of a motorbike. From here things didn't quite go to plan as I had studied well the 300km route from Yaounde south to the boarder, but only guesstimated the rest and messed up by a factor of two. But, having come this far the only option was to sit and wait for the next transport to continue my way 612km to the nearest Cameroon Embassy in Libreville to reapply for another visa. I hoped for something better, but ended up travelling most of it in a 10 seat toyota minivan with 17 people on board, plus luggage, which took the entire night to reach our destination, with multiple comical army checkpoints ...

We have had the luck to come across an excellent group of people all belonging to what I thought was a long past colonial relic, the Hash House Harriers (HHH). It turns out this concept is alive and well around the world, usually in places with large expat communities. Here in Yaounde every Saturday at 3:30pm, a group of around 30 or 40 takes off into the green hills around the city for an hour or so run and then some social drinking afterwards. Last week was a little damp and therefore muddy, with the allocated trail leading through fields and and up and down muddy slopes. The route for the run is laid out by some volunteer 'hares' in the morning using some standard little markings at junctions. The 'harrier' runners come along and have to search and find the correct route. This means lots of extra running and searching for the fitter and faster members, and a more social slower time for those bringing up the rear. Turns out that the concept started in Kuala Lumpur in ...

Elodie and I have landed in Cameroon, with the rolling green hills of the busy little capital city of Yaounde all around us now. It is hot and humid and we have been spending our first forty eight hours here tapping away at a long list of jobs including getting sim cards for our cell phones, sorting out our house, hunting down internet, supermarkets, and money changers. Elodie will be working on an HIV study based at the main hospital here and concerned with a new 2nd line drug and its effectiveness and side effects. I will be visiting MSF and other organisations in the coming days with a view to a similar position as in the past, non profit logistics or management. We are living in a basic three story building run by the organisation Elodie is working for, in one of four flats run for expat students and research workers. We are sharing with two others, one French woman studying for a masters, and another Swiss woman undertaking research into condom use and acceptance. The place is a b...